[applause] get on the inner say go an hourandahalf south end you take a right to and you come across a nondescript little town Courthouse Square absolutely an admirable one of the space miss america that is the center of the biggest book go set a watchman. Guest you find el little landlocked town in alabama that hasnt changed too much from teethirty description in and to kill a mockingbird. Keeping an eye out for the kfc. [laughter] there was a time the town council would tear down the old courthouse because they built a 1960s courthouse now of course, that has been restored now looks like a torch. Is the shrine to American Literary culture but that is the best thing about that tower. There is still though museum friedman and trimming capote where his home town was. It is the square. The bricks are still there with the boundary of the house that there is a plaque than there is the yard i think is where that walkin theory is. But it seems almost reluctant to embrace it is the southern concord. And it is a much different town from oxford it is also a shrine to its author but it is a small southern town the park almost perfectly preserved but macon is still a little stuffy round of quarters for go like doing the opponents on the square it has none of that atmosphere and teeeighteen is happy to cooperate in promoting to kill a mockingbird or her personal history the events have included her threatening to sue the Historical Society so she is not dangerous to be back in the limelight. Host lets jump ahead to go set a watchman as we will talk about later later, actually that is the book when she went up to new york to write that is a book she wrote but it mockingbird evolves with the editing process but at the center of this controversy ive not going to publish another book that her longtime caretaker is well into what she was 100 then there is a story of this found manuscript. I have been telling audiences for years there is a second novel but would be published after her death bed here comes a book during her lifetime. Host and the creation story the church tells is fabulous. She was going through some things and comes across this manuscript of go set a watchman. And alice said it was stolen that is what happened with the novel that teeeighteen was working on it edgers sister said it was stolen. And it has been there all this time. And the skill as a key has been found. Into always wanted publish. Maybe i will show this to some people. As was typical of all families there was a competition. Alice was a conservative foreign aid and about 17 years older than her younger sister and as a result she saw herself as a surrogate parent. She was extroverted and bohemian and alice served as the buffer between her younger sister and the world that wanted to know more about her. I think a certain amount of joy to publish the book that she would never let her publish. Host why . There could be a number of reasons i play mind reader but it could be it was the first ever by a young novelist and has the earmarks of that. Harper has assured us they have not edited the book at all. Host is seen as fantastic not only did the york but living in a flat flat, of friendly family that is slightly older couple gave her money to write for one year then she turned san 50 years 70 pages thank every week. This is the manuscript ed go set a watchman was the original title. When i saw at it they did not even make an offer. No. At one time she told people she was working on a novel called additives atticus. All those things go through working titles i believe to kill a mockingbird went through three different voices first person from a third person and we get a combination of the two with looking back and filling a sin as the nine yearold scout could not have known. You can see that editing process senate the firstaid to return and is the adults scout looking back as she has come back home set in contemporary times of the 50s or 60s with civilrights turmoil and tells the story of looking back. Lazy way to get into it. She takes the trade held back from in the south and reminisces with her father who was elderly now about those bygone. But go set a watchman comes from a scene in to kill a mockingbird. Atticus is the watchbands standing guard from the mob that does show up. So the editing process process, that was expensive and then check more than two years. What he merged is the story that Everybody Knows your best work is scout kind id like the korean war but talking about the vietnam war. That was the editing process and i was fascinated you can see the of voices in third person than first person and this is from nine yearold scout that macon was an old town but a tired old town when i first inuit in canada grasses on the sidewalks the courthouse would sag in the square somehow it was hotter than as of black dogs suffered on a hot day with six flies in the sheltering sweltering schaede. She is looking back and reminiscing. This is straight from go set a watchman and that voice from the editing. Whether it deserves a purpose is a coin toss. If you tell the story from the Vantage Point of the nine yearold girl a lot of things she could not possibly know horsey. Or seek. But take the adults looking back bay add a little wisdom, hindsight and reassurance that all well be well because these children were put into dangerous circumstances run into the backyard, mobs, firing a shotgun but with her coat grown up coming back to reassure us that it was a summer, we get this sense we will come out okay. Than there is the voiceover in the film with the adult narration. Exactly. So it will be very interesting to how this emerges. I talked to Wayne Greenwald was by now but was very close to harper and he grew up in the area and he always believed that to kill a mockingbird was cobbled together from revere manuscript and freestanding short stories from that time that make good chapters on their own which is the story of how gm lost his temper to break all the high drenches hydrangea in front of the house and then when he found out he she said want to reread to he doesnt know that she is coming to come off the addition of morphine and eventually she you passes away that is a short story but it was just pulled out in the film because you can. It is a puzzle piece. Now back to the modern day of this manuscript is sitting in a safe deposit box. Politely i dont know if i believe that because harper lee was quoted to say that she had a very difficult time after to kill a mockingbird came out she wanted to publish another book and worked very hard even capote said she is locked of writing she wanted to write another so it seems incredible that here is go set a watchman one of the most successful books in the american half century but it doesnt dawn on anybody and there is no record or any evidence of the a editor one decade later to even contemplate publishing best. And her agent sensor a note one year after to kill a mockingbird in all capitals to say the mockingbird would like to have a little brother or sister. Is anxiously waiting. Also it was available. But the tone of the notes is how was it going . You would think the etf she was struggling and she clearly was, lets see but we to do with that first one that you turned in and maybe spruce it up a little bit but there is nothing out there. Have you ever heard of any evidence they worked on the manuscript after to kill a mockingbird . No. There is nothing freefloating of their called the long goodbye but it could be a working title and i dont know what that is but i do know there was no large manuscript called go set a watchman and to kill a mockingbird so beyond that there seems to be nothing but there was a an attempt in cold blood Nonfiction Book in the 80s she squirreled herself away at her sisters house and she worked with data a tory is case in alabama with those who was a beneficiary of ben insurance policy. His attorney kept getting him off and they finally got fed up and at the fifth funeral at a victim somebody in the congregations shot him dead with the law could not achieve. The local sheriff said the first time 300 witnesses nobody had sought a thank for go she worked on and kept the files in the eternity kept asking for them and passed without the files ever being returned so she was trying and trying and trying and her support system and her team fellow way so sheaf went out to sea with drugs and alcohol and became undependable friends already in her 60s when she helped her with to kill a mockingbird so then she retired and the browns had other fish to fry as day prod with lyricist. These are the people who sponsored her. The bloom was off the rose by the 70s you have to do with to audit your own do it on your own. Host she lived extremely simple cry was surprised when i saw her house the most nondescript one story brick ranch. There is nothing that would suggest if you looked for harper lee house. She has a very simple and straightforward life that is not necessarily true she is a recluse she does is and talk to people most of the time living in new york. Guest she is provincial and said i want to be the jane austen of the south that she wanted to write about the region and the people in the region. In her own life she kept close to people she had grown up with the work go to church with doors say hello on the street but in a new yorker circle is very small again. Friends wrote from alabama to say were coming up to york and new york. And at one point he wrote i have no idea why she moved up here. She is not a new yorker. She is a hobbyist and would love architecture when things were made and was of baseball friends shed a close friend at the new yorker there would go to ballgames together but when somebody invited her to midtown manhattan she said would never come down there. It is too wild. [laughter] she did not live high on the hog. But it was never about the money. This book to kill a mockingbird is a tribute to her father. She always said it is a love story about a great man in a small town in more powerful scene when atticus this is the case as he packs up the briefcase everybody stands up in the minister turns that scout, your father is passing. It is a great line. That is the data every bette really really really wants. He has been voted the number one hero. You can have Indiana Jones but they would like a moral giant. Host we will come back to that of her dad was not quite atticus. But he had his instincts. Host i am very much less of conspiracy theories because when you go down there to try to meet harper lee and looks just like the little town in mississippi i grew up in. Is a dead ringer and everything is the same. And that was her experience that everything changes. Normally the first question is you are not from around here, are you . [laughter] so i had several strikes against man was out of town, a yankee. Host whos need to . We have seen your kind before. [laughter] but it is remarkable the word goes out everywhere. You dont know quite familiar were talking to them in the u. S. One person by the time you get to the second Everybody Knows you are here and there is an agreement giving anybody will talk. Exactly another they said reelect in a better. Here i was talking to one gentleman on the square and other walked up it was almost prearranging was introduced to the man who was the judge and he says come back to maya chambers then would grill me why i was content in town and what i expected to find. There is a telegraph going on. Host was he appointed or surveying himself the unofficial gatekeeper . Exactly. They have those who are pleasant but then the enforcers. Bbc went down a number of years ago and was enjoying what they were doing and a couple of elderly ladies would pass out then he said with a bbc crew that was harper lee. [laughter] there is too interesting points to the relationship of that town the second book and whether or not she likes the town that much. [laughter] because if you notice everyone has this fantastical opinion it is unwise love letter to a small southern town but it is of love letter to her dad but if you notice in the book virtually no other adult other than atticus or the sheriff nobody is decent a mob comes to take care of them after wrongly accused of raping a tell full of thousands the Church Ladies are the biggest hypocrite helping people in africa but on the air side of the tracks people need help. And one has to pretend he is dead drunk or nobody would catch the fact he is married to a black woman. It is funny and sad and bittersweet. So she writes this to the town and it becomes a huge success and it seems to me she did not like the town she went to renew york that this is a horrible place and i got out. But then the town has this thing where they are supposed to like her if she is supposed to kind id like them but it is the touchy relationship but of the she cared for the town very much a state she was glad to be gone. Guest make clear that harper lee is not just critique the white people she makes it clear that prejudice and fear runs in the human blood. When the person who takes care of the kids takes them to her black church able man plants themselves in her way to say whether youre doing your . Is a showdown to bring the children into the church so there is that suspicion we dont have saints and sinners with those are affected by this circumstance but getting to new york she could not have written to kill a mockingbird unless she went to new york because living in that town she had a perspective and what did she see . Look on the subway car people with different kinds of dress, access, people go to harlem to hear jazz. A diverse environment that is one of the first stopping points. Associates looks back over her shoulder and she sees the town said in its ways that is the comfort zone of never changing the way things have always been so that new perspective allowed her to write the book. Host i think she would have been happy to stay away from the town but her sister insisted she come back regularly because as the family obligation why should she be left holding the bag . Because their mother was not well. Shortly after the publication began june decline so alice would argue but she is tired of all of business connected to family life and she was her to come back to shoulder some of the burden. Host her friends will tell you once you were inside the curtain very nice and very pleasant but outside it seems alabama would strike may be affectionate reception for the book came out in the 60s that in who was not changed by it . Even with the selma is just up the road if you fly into the airport at montgomery you go by bit by their solve those that came right after word the bombing of the church is reveres the lessons but did not learn of guest realize to kill a mockingbird was not taught down there until 1984. You were making that up. She had to buy classroom copies. Why wasnt it taught earlier . Offends too many people. It was controversial in the 80s. So they did not care for the overall town then they mention and though lawsuits there is a play there that is very popular is licensed to be an amateur production and. You will not see that on broadway. I was on the jury. Spec you could see their resentment that i broke this story how unpleasant and indeed the town can be no uturn about acting like you love it and you could see why that might take her off. Yes. She was the characters and the story to remain in the past ought to appear our lunch boxes or mugs or tshirts or key chains. She once the integrity of the book respected. Some High School Kids painted of mural on the side of the building depicting the season and she called it graffiti. Host there are other stories where if she likes you she is pleasant but if she doesnt as. No. Data Christmas Party in outoftowners said i loved your book. About atticus. She put down the drink and have left. Some people regarded as the bible. Host the incident with the museum a few years ago they were selling tshirts with to kill a mockingbird and they did not have the copyright and when she asserted that right they objected. You can see that. Is the un easy relationship but 20,000 people, a year just to walk the streets so that town benefits the cafes, they also lemonade because of teeeighteen and to kill a mockingbird. If it was not taught until the 1980s then when did it become a tourist attraction . I cannot pinpoint that but it happened gradually by increment and the plate would help that is something they can legitimately publicized but they have not made any steps to create the boyhood home only recently there was a plaque to said that Truman Capote was your. Is one of the most amazing literary friendships the population when they were kids . Maybe 7500 or less. It is about 5,000 now. I dont think it would peak at any point to. [laughter] in this civil for the town was founded with about 300 people half white and half black then there was a Union Soldier the pastor at some point. By the time she was accused it still did not have streets. People love that lifestyle would not have it any other way. It is the very nice little town in tow you get contentious with the book but that is where some of that starts to come up because it sounds like the rest of the country is not printable to discuss the Racial Injustice but people love to kill a mockingbird but there now offended by the Confederate Flag. It comes out this summer they take down the Confederate Flag it could not be better timing. I dont want to go down that alley but i do think the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage with a Confederate Flag by would be very surprised that conservative pink would except both in the same summer. But then to come into this society that she is not comfortable with and comes all more or less after she has had a stroke. Guest about five for six years ago and minder standing in she was in her apartment alone after suffered a stroke about two per girl might have happened on saturday morning and monday morning friends came to pick her up they found her lying on the floor conscious but had suffered a stroke. That is the moment the decision was made you must come home. Host and her friend coin to the phrase everybody comes home even if in a box. Truman was always the unusual character. Host that creates controversy but she is diminished intellectually to some degree but it depends on who you talk to. Guest and alice said harper will sign anything to please anyone so that copyright dilemma or controversy she lost it to a frivolous agent which again that alice was managing her affairs. Also the dustup over the author of the of book was about to bring it out there she protested that they had signed a release understanding it she was interviewing them. This was extraordinary access it is very hard to meet a man she was living next door. As a journalist shoes highly ethical and got their permission but they did not recall signing that. But alice i think was pretty clear and this is why there is controversy later she said i never cooperated with the book fair and alice said that they were not on the same page as the sisters were getting older and they live together in the house. That is just off the square then they moved of little bit out to a nice neighborhood with a 01 story rand she had lived there with their dad that was the two sisters neither never married. That is where they stayed. Barely had millions of dollars in this seemed in the past five for six years and started to fracture. There are both losing intellectual capacity. I saw us sign of it when i was working on mockingbird. I had been at work for europe interviewing people who knew her to do research then i got a letter from powless to say i a understand your outworked about of book about my sister and i do like it and i thought to ladies who have breakfast every day and she said they would not cooperate but apparently her sister did not know. But when allis said the letter what happened next . I would go to do the mailbox every day expecting a big fat envelope but i try to be a gentleman and discrete explaining reasons i thought this was a story that needed to be told before bette passed away who could remember because the papers were not on file so there was not much of a trail i was trying to do get it down because atticus is the of Huckleberry Finn of the 20th century and the story needs to be told. A lot of people agree but also people say i am a close friend i knew you would call but i am sorry i cannot talk to you. What about the family . Alice. When i started to send them things for their Family History there grandfathers application for the civil war pension things like that that i thought they may like to have i would get a letter back to say you certainly have been doing your research that i times her fathers politics how that transition happened from a strict segregation as to an activist to redistricting, she said she was a fair minded man he had his antenna up for the winds of change and the attitude is the right solution is what we should go for. Host so your an attempt for nel was through her agent . My agent tried to contact her but i was down there one time a friend said we could drive by and she might be out. I said i do not want her to think i am counting her and people will see the stranger going by slowly to watch. I said leave it because i was doing fine on my own. Or i could have provoked her progress as a biographer i should be able to get the story. Is hard to live in america and not leave evidence of who you associate with gore went to school but or Sorority Sisters or people who lived on her street in new york it just took lot of shoe leather. You did not want to get the cease and desist letter because then they tell everybody vice vice this guy. I was reporting a story earlier this year a number of doors and went to knock on as cars are in the driveway but nobody came to the door. You the cards and they dont call you back. It is an unusual southern town in that regard if they know what you on their porch they will tell you get off my porch. [laughter] a very wall of silence delicate notes on the piano. Guest there is a and a dilemma they dont want to be unfriendly because people do, but on the other hand, there could be a lot of dissension between the people as she does have an extended family in the area through her sister and brother as her sister married and her elder brother had children as well as those of lees family is no part gone from alabama and to maintain that in a small town is critical they will not be tray each other. And in that town even with social currency to say i am friends with the lees there is no higher social circle. I thought that is why people were unhappy with the of boyer down there. There is a very and i am interested in your point of view that all this change in the past three years with the lawsuit against the museum and the book comes out, there is other contentious things that actually she is doing exactly what her client is asking her to do what has been removed is the buffer of allison was a stalwart and when she went out of the way that actually it is exactly what her client wants to do and nell doesnt care if people get upset. Sure. I agree entirely. Unfortunately ms. Carter is the fall person by the she is taking direction from a woman who was up there in years who doesnt need to be second guest a little extra of perk to be important to get an. But she did have a stroke and is diminished and any number of people who said those who have known her for 30 years you were in the circle said there was a Junior College that has the festival she never came to a and it is named for her but she came one year. Someone said thanks for coming and she said what you talking about . Good days and bad days but then she seems to reverse a lifelong opinion i will not publish any more. Then a somewhat miraculous story of a manuscript very soon after within a few months of alices death now nell is happy to have the book published again millions of dollars are on the table and i think there is legitimate concern whether nell really understands. And with the evaluation of the capacity was found to be fine but it does raise issues of elder care of that kind of thing. Although we have never been in a situation where a second book has come out while they are still alive that has this much importance. Normally it is the a state the state. And then choose sues. I think there are some very honest questions from my point of view as a journalist that the Publishing House and her agent are all very closemouthed about at the Publishing House but i have never heard of this. But is seems almost incredible but the book was is right here i am the attorney in digest crossette. I showed it to nell lets publish it. They liked it no editing. What is your theory . Guest i think were very fortunate to have the book come out and in particular at this time. I hope it is a very fine book to address things that are unresolved. There is a private high school primarily right white and an all black public highschool. The more things change. Believe me. We have a lot of work to do but a timely reminder to have this book come out this summer. And in terms of the voice san insincerity and the issues that raises, we will all be so fortunate. I hope lahood the review workers give it up by. People she would said no. Now another if youre at the top of the mountain there is only way to one way to get down. She won a pulitzer for her first novel. The pressure was on her. So she takes a risk and i hope they do realize it was written 60 years ago when she was in her 20s fresh to new york. Host and for the skepticism raised, my theory is you have to believe it was miraculously found. That simply comedy looking for this, it seems you may look for them around the house. Certainly i would but. I have seen the footage it is typed. Now you have to go to some effort to find somebody that could still type. [laughter] happy to blow up my own theory is to represent a breakthrough that can make them millions of dollars by publishing and earlier work there is a passage that i read that it is my theory from later in life that is the tone of the rating writing girl. Guest i talk to somebody that was on the newspaper with nell the citizens as they open the book i could hear her voice. As a return to literary stardom to earn as much money as the market would bear that is dead for presentation. It is a shot in the arm for Literary History and publishing and readers to be on every beach in america and to talk about it. Host did you have any sense when youre writing the book how long . It took four years to do their research with very little to do go on she really did disappear 1964. A quick part of the biography is oral history i got it first to and from people who sat next to her in class. I had to go back to reconstruct the past from the people who lived it to. Host she gives many quotations now and then there everybody presumes she is couched. But she is stopped but then she would say i am boo radley. I also think she is the girl who once loved to did not have a steady come i think she is an outsider as much as boo radley but she tries to participate and nell was said different cat. Her and truman were two different kinds of kids. Truman was too soft for the boys and nell was too hard for their girls. Host and boo is a real character really did just live down the street which is a gas station now. It is the backyard is a school and describes it exactly the same way in the book. Guest human gene you grew up bin mississippi but there is that person down the block in every neighborhood who will not come our tells you to get off though lawn in every town there is an american frankenstein. Only by extending ourselves we have to learn to live with them like atticus says to the children leave that man alone. But to be described as the idiot has a very real person, i believe his first grade teachers brother was mentally incapacitated and haddad big fence in the yard to keep him and if that is where he was from she pulls boo from the guy down the street. The famous teacher in high school is in the book. It is not complete the autobiographical but they compress and they cut and create, but yes with to kill a mockingbird you go through a photo album. Host and she did the same thing. Guest about her father. He was not entirely atticus. Host called one shot finch and you major in one incident he had a three piece suit he goes hunting he picked up the shotgun. [laughter] he was not but in terms of integrity with his understanding of children he is atticus. Errand he is out there with opposition to the editor vocal this paper. Oh the klan had a march he told them to get out of the st. Nobody gave them a permit the civilrights an editorial about it. He was not typical of his age he was thoughtful and compassionate of the year at his local church. The elements of atticus are there. Host and it is all right there in town. Everything is very close together a issue would expect if you can do the walking and 15 minutes. Talk about very close. Host they kept him in the house. And he died very young of tuberculosis and has not been out in 20 years he would come out at night to sit on the porch for this started off as an active hijinks as he got into trouble but it turned into induced acrophobia if you dont go out for a long time river ready would be too shocked to see you any way that is where she gets boo. And the family plot is right off the main road the churches over here and there is a spot. Darr altogether in the end of town that comforting that is i presume is for nell who was just 2 miles away. She has lived in a very circumscribed world she covers the upper magnolias with the first frost and those of peabodys history knows everybodys history. That is the thought of what you turned in an . Yes to kill a mockingbird but go set a watchman is the first draft host that is actually the books that she wrote she wanted to go off north following truman. Faulkner was the huge star he had not written in cold blood yet. But there was other forces there she wanted to be a writer so she went up to new york all the time in her cold water flat she was working for so long is really go set a watchman. Guest a lot of southerners were going up to new york. After the war it was the fantastic place. What a great time to be there. And she, for eight nine years had been trying to tell a senior from their childhood. Third draft tired of it. One night she is sitting at the